Last Moment of Peace
by TheBatgirl31
Summary: The Bolshevik revolution has begun and Ivan mourns the loss of those he loved and relies on the love of his stoic, tentative Yao to prepare him for the upcoming fight to preserve the world he knew. RoChu Love.


**In memory of the tragic end of the lives of the Romanov family in 1918, marking the start of a revolution in Russia that marked the end of the Russian monarchy.

Last Moment of Peace

It was dark and it was cold and the world outside the nearest window was about to be turned on its head. By morning it would be shocked and stunned into frightened stagnation. By nightfall, it would be unrecognizable. Russia had just lost its shining stars and the night sky seemed dimmer.

Ivan sat in his large upholstered chair facing into a barren fireplace. The room was dark, except for the gas lamps in the corners casting shadows from different angles over the furniture. The redness of the chair he sat it was the ultimate irony to stab at the pain he felt. There was an empty glass sitting next to a crystal decanter on the table beside him and the glass was dry.

There was no way for him to verbalize the tearing in his chest and the heaviness of his limbs as grief slowly began to eat away at his body. Ivan sat alone, which was best, his cloudy eyes made him feel as if he were sinking, drowning into himself and consumed by the growing effort it took not to sob.

No sounds, except the wind outside. It was the first night in some time where it had not snowed. The air was still restless, like a frantic voice carrying the news across the city.

_Nicholas_…

Ivan covered his face with his hands and let out a burst of air. Each of his limps quaked and his face contorted in anguish.

This was the end. The end of the golden world, the grandeur and grace of crowns and nobility. Nobility of family and the nobility of men. An unwanted chapter in his history begun by unmerciful cowards plotting in the night like spiders winding webs in unnoticed corners. Everything would change and it would mean the end of familiarity for quite sometime.

He would be told the news though he knew by the sense of their absent presence in the world, and he would grasp at the world around him in attempt to keep his balance until his new bosses arrived at his door. Then it would truly be over and he would become a part of their history. And witness the destruction everything.

The door opened and suddenly the lamplight felt warmer. A pair of slippered feet padded across the carpeted floor and came to stand before Ivan. The man was wearing a maroon dressing gown and his long black hair was tied to the side in a thin braid. He said nothing but stared down at Ivan in silence. He waited and decided to build up a fire in the hearth.

Suddenly, a blast of heat his Ivan in the face and his eyes opened fully for the first time that evening. He looked upon the man kneeling and poking a rod into the fire to arrange the logs. His face was calm but there was worry drawn in the lines of the mouth. Yao had still said nothing.

Then he stood and faced Ivan again, taking a step closer and bending slightly to meet his gaze.

"Aren't you coming to bed tonight," he asked?

Ivan was staring past him into the fire.

"What is it? Ivan?" he persisted. Yao placed himself directly into Ivan's line of sight and waited. How well he knew him. He was waiting to be invited into Ivan's grief before offering comfort. It had always been his way, to let Ivan decide whether or not to share his sadness. Only then would Yao give what the Russian seldom asked for.

There was lengthened silence until Ivan stretched out his arm in a beckoning gesture. "Yao."

Yao recognized the sign and came forward t sit beside Ivan on the arm of the chair, but was quickly pulled into his lap. Ivan wrapped one arm around Yao's waist and leaned his forehead against Yao's shoulder. Yao placed both hands on Ivan's shoulders and let his head rest atop Ivan's.

More silence.

Yao again asked, "What has happened?"

Ivan sighed heavily and sat back against the chair, he head tilted slightly upward and his eyes were closed.

"What I have feared most. They are gone," he said in a husky whisper.

Yao sat for a moment in stunned thought. Surely he could not mean…

"Gone?" was all he could think so say.

Ivan nodded.

"They're-"

"Dead."

Yao's next breath was heavier than the last and he felt his fingertips prickle with a rush of anticipation and shock.

"But…." He did not ask how. Ivan looked at him them with an expression that screamed of his grief, the brokenness in his shining eyes, and the firm clench f his jaw. But the way his brow narrowed, the wrinkles between his eyes hardened his expression and a word bolted through Yao's mind and buried itself into his nerves.

_Murder_…

"All of them," whispered Ivan. His voice began to crack and his breathing was coming out in heavy bursts through his nose.

Yao wrapped his arms loosely around Ivan's back but leaned aside to try to look at his face. Ivan stared ahead and then the dam broke. His eyes slammed shut and the tears began to escape the tight slits. His bottom lip quivered until his teeth clenched and he grimaced as if struck by a sharp pain. He let out a guttural groan and then pressed his head into Yao's chest, hands wrapping tightly around his waist, one hand clenching the chair's arm tightly behind him.

Yao wrapped his arms around Ivan and let one hand rest on the skin of his neck while the other raked upward into his silver hair.

Ivan breathed heavily against Yao and but kept his eyes clamped tight. He felt the silk material of Yao's robes against his nose and inhaled the scent of his skin in the small patch above his collar; lavender soap and a hint of something that was specific to Yao that only he noticed or could place as his.

With one hand, Ivan reached up and opened Yao's robe slightly so that he could rest his face against the span of chest above his heart. Yao allowed him and pressed his lips against Ivan's forehead. They embraced in silence, and Ivan was grateful. Yao was not one to scramble for something to say to comfort him. He understood that a person's presence was often more cherished than any of the generic sympathy or apologies that come when seeing a loved one hurting as Ivan was.

Yao waited for Ivan to speak, as it often was.

"They shot the princesses," Ivan said brokenly and his shoulders shook with the effort to restrain his surmounting anger.

Yao simply held him tighter.

A squeaked cry and a gush of tears through an expelling sob. "And the prince."

_The little boy_, rang in Yao's head, along with the image of a smiling son running after a ball on a plane of groomed grass, waving at him.

Ivan had a temper and eyes that rivaled the ice building on the windowsill outside and his hair was a more fierce white than the roads vanishing under the snow, but these rare moments where the coldness in his demeanor melted and emerged the young, frightened young man Yao had known from so long ago. They were cherished by Yao because Ivan would allow himself to be cared for and put to shame to façade others saw in him as an unfeeling, bringer of fear.

"A mother and father…and their children…their children." Ivan did not speak again for sometime. Yao felt and heard his tears. Ivan's hands were running up and down Yao's back and the edge of his chest. He cried, and then shouted or growled in fury and then was silent again. Yao waited.

Suddenly, Yao decided to voice a thought.

"They were very much in love." He didn't necessarily say it to Ivan. He simply stated it as true. And it was.

Yao felt Ivan nod slightly against his chest, while Yao continued to knead his fingers against his snow-like scalp.

"It's all over now," whispered Ivan.

"They loved each other," said Yao again, not completely lost in thought.

"They are dead…"

"But they were together."

Ivan said nothing to that, but he squeezed Yao's waist after a time and kissed the skin under his cheek.

Finally, Ivan lifted his head and gazed up at Yao, at the pools of brown that burned with a heat that soothed Ivan's exterior and interior chill. Yao's lips were pale but delicately traced onto his face like strokes of calligraphy on a simple canvas. They were very warm and slightly chapped when Ivan pressed at Yao's neck to bring their lips together. The kiss was long but soothing and a way to bring them to their next step.

Ivan broke the kiss and looked up at the face of a calm tiger, waiting intently for something he wanted.

"You must leave tonight, Yoshka," said Ivan, brushing his fingers through Yao's long hair.

Yao took that hand and laced their fingers together tightly, a pained and angry look on his face at hearing Ivan's request.

"I should be here with you. It does no good to send me back home when you'll be trapped here and I won't know how long…"

"I want you out of Russia by morning. You must listen to me now." Ivan interjected, kissing Yao's knuckles and grazing the skin with his teeth.

Yao looked angry. "Where am I going?"

"I will meet you in Beijing. Go there and find Shang. Tell him to send a telegram when you have arrived so I at least know you are safe. "

Yao frowned. He pulled Ivan closer but Ivan pulled back slightly. As he stared into Yao's eyes he was slowly reverting back to the Ivan that would face a different world come morning, and Yao became afraid. How long until he would see _his_ Ivan again?

"And what will you do?" asked Yao.

Ivan made to stand up and Yao jumped off his lap to the floor, only to sit back down in Ivan's place. Ivan moved to sit between Yao's knees facing the fire, head leaning against a soft calve and stroking the skin. Ivan's tall frame almost put his feet into the flames, the bulk of his thick sweater over a long collared shirt made him seem heavier on the floor and he pressed back against Yao like a life preserver preventing him from sinking too deep into the same thoughts. Morning would come and it would be unwelcome, for it would see the dawn of a revolution and the loss of Yao's comfort for an undetermined amount of time.

Ivan reached up after a while and pulled Yao down to him. Yao sat atop Ivan's lap and Ivan was astounded by how bright Yao's hair appeared against the glow of the fire.

"They took away the future I dreamed of. And now they're taking you away from me," said Ivan sadly. As much as it would hurt to separate from him, Ivan felt the ordeal ahead would be tolerable if he knew Yao was far away from the fighting that was to come.

Yao frowned at that and was about to retort that he was very capable and willing to stay with Ivan when he knew he would be needed, but he was silenced by persistent lips finding his and the words seemed to vanish. Yao cupped Ivan's face in his hands and allowed Ivan to pull him down as he came to lay flat on the carpet in front of the fire.

One last night. One last time together in the world Ivan had wanted for him and Yao. A world of his choosing, with the people he had loved. Now Yao was the only light in the growing gloom and he would have to send him away, to protect his last ray of free sunshine.

Yao's robe soon joined Ivan's discarded shirts on the ground and they spend one last heated night together, pushing aside the grief and trying to imprint this memory into their minds for the long stretch of separation ahead. Yao concentrated on the feel of Ivan's hands traveling over his skin while Ivan relished in the sounds coming from Yao as he ran his fingertips over every space of bare skin.

Ivan tried not to think about what he would face without Yao: the desolation of his home by those who had stolen the right to lead his people into this new time.

While Yao's skin melded atop his and their bodies were joined, Ivan caught a glimpse out of the window at the snow that had started to fall. Soon a fresh layer of white would blot out the Russian Ivan had gone to sleep knowing.

_Dasvidaniya._


End file.
